Week Twenty: Aphex Twin ā Words & Music.
Itās weird, if Iād known that Words & Music was just a promotional disc that Sire put out to promote their issue of Selected Ambien Works vol II, I probably wouldnāt have bothered with it. To get down to just fifty-two releases, I had to skip a few less-essential compilations, remix records and so on, some of which were certainly more deserving of inclusion than this. But Iām also glad I did include it (thanks to my general lack of research), because itās a weird little artefact, both of Richard D. James, and of the days when record labels actually still used to bother doing shit like this.
Yeah, for a promo disc, thereās actually been some work put in to it ā rather than just sticking a couple of tracks on an un-adorned CD, or sending out the whole album in a cardboard sleeve with a ārecommended tracks:ā label on the front, this took at least a small amount of effort. Itās three tracks from SAWII, four little interview snippets with the man himself backed by bits and pieces from other records, then a weird remix of the interview in to a weird-ass noise collage. I mean these days youāre sometimes lucky to get a promo CD at all instead of a watermarked stream link or something ā although we now know that the 90s were a horrific time of record label excess, the prominence of actual physical releases did make for some more interesting things sometimes.
Itās always nice to have an excuse to listen to Blue Calx, and the other two tracks from SAWII are good ones too, but itās the interview clips that are the most interesting. Without any context from lyrics, itās hard to get an impression of who Richard D. James actually is from just his music ā any other impression other than that heās a really weird dude, anyway ā but itās always struck me howā¦ ānormalā he comes off in interviews. I mean, yeah, heās said some odd things about conspiracy theories and so on, but he can be incredibly matter-of-fact about his music.
On the interviews here, he talks about his love of the extremes of music, whether itās the most chilled-out ambience or the most aggressive hardcore ā which seems obvious enough, given the music he makes, but itās nice to hear him say it. He talks about his relationship with Sire, his worries that he wouldnāt understand him, and his surprise when they understood the way he wanted to work. He doesnāt really describe his live set processes, but he does explain a bit about how āfucking complicatedā it is. And he talks about how he fears the weight of his own ideas causing mental blocks in his creativity. None of the clips say a lot ā theyāre all under fifty seconds ā but theyāre actually pretty enlightening in their own small way. Strangely candid for someone soā¦ I dunnoā¦ I hate to say āmysteriousā, but what else can you say? Sometimes itās easy to forget that James is a real person and not a terrifying carnival mask twisting synthesizers in to unworldly shapes, and unexpected glimpses behind the scenes are welcomely humanising.
And then thereās the weird cut-up bit of Jamesā distorted voice and some random noises, which is actually terrifying if you listen to it through headphones (seriously, donāt listen to it through headphones). Itās kind of incredible that this sort of thing is contained on a CD thatās supposed to encourage journalists and music industry types to listen to an artist favourably, when the sound of it would probably put plenty of them off. But, as he says elsewhere, his deal with Sire gave him total creative control, and thatās what he chose to do with it. In a way, thatās kind of more telling than anything he says on the interview tracks themselves.
In the grand scheme of things, though, itās sort of a nothing release. I wonder if James even remembers that it exists. Although, itās the only promo CD of its type that he ever did, so maybe he does. Given that he can dump hundreds of tracks on Soundcloud at a time now, I would imagine that he doesnāt look back too fondly on an era when he had to play the industry game like this. Or maybe he does? Maybe he preferred the days when triple records were real triple records, and you could distort the shit out of samples of your own voice and a major label would actually pay real money to put it on a CD and send it out to people in the post. Itās hard to say. But, once again, any excuse to listen to Blue Calx is a welcome one. Itās been an odd week of strange highs and lows. Mainly, though, I bought a house (which is a pretty stressful experience just by the way) and saw my favourite band pretty much of all time ā American Football ā after about a twelve-year wait that I never dreamt would be over. Iām fuckinā exhausted, man. Zoning out to Blue fuckinā Calx is about as much as I could ever have asked for. So thereās that.
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